Charles Burns grew up in Seattle in the 1970s. His work rose to prominence in Art Spiegelman's Raw magazine in the mid-1980s and took off from there, for an extraordinary range of comics and projects, from Iggy Pop album covers to the latest ad campaign for Altoids. In 1992 he designed the sets for Mark Morris's delightful restaging of The Nutcracker. He's illustrated covers for Time, the New Yorker and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. He is the official cover artist for The Believer magazine. Black Hole received Eisner, Harvey and Ignatz awards in 2005. Burns lives in Philadelphia with his wife and two daughters.
I love everything about this book: the story, the drawings, its way with all things extraterrestrial… It’s wraparound wonderful, as close to immersive as any comic could be… a book to be read and reread * Observer * Black Hole is best graphic novel of the year... One of the most stunning graphic novels yet published * TIME * Charles Burns' comics are fluid, smooth and as solidly built as a vintage TV set, but they shudder with the chill of the uncanny * New York Times * The confidence with which Burns positions himself within the larger map of other writing and art is entirely earned * New Statesman * Sugar Skull is one of the most vividly drawn and painfully and honest expositions of male guilt I’ve ever read * Observer * A striking celebration of cinema's power and a chilling acknowledgement of its limitations. * Kirkus Reviews *